


scar tissue

by lonelyghosts



Category: Sailor Nothing
Genre: Crushes, F/F, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Scars, Self-Harm, implied child neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyghosts/pseuds/lonelyghosts
Summary: After a fight with a Yamiko, Himei and Aki patch each other up.[Set during Chapter 4].





	scar tissue

**Author's Note:**

> hi im out here creating sailor nothing fic because no one else will and i need to show these two 2002 era depressed & traumatized teenagers some love tbh

"Close your eyes."

"I still don't get why you're so upset about me joining the Sailors, Himei. It's the least I could do after the way I treated you for years, it's- ow!"

"I told you to close your eyes."

"But you didn't tell me you were going to pour antiseptic all over my arms!"

"If I'd told you, you would've moved away. I'm not spilling antiseptic on my bedroom carpet."

"It's still mean!"

They were sitting on Himei's bed, legs crossed, the contents of a first aid kit lying scattered between them. Himei had changed into a pair of worn pajamas that might have once been a bright blue but had long since faded into grey. Below them, Dusty was lying on the floor, snoring softly, and as Aki watched, Himei picked up a long white bandage and motioned at Aki's torso. For a moment, she failed to grasp the meaning of the gesture, and then color rose to her cheeks.

"Himei! I'm not taking my shirt off!" she yelped.

Himei frowned. "Why? You've got scrapes all over your stomach, I know you do, and your shoulders too. Don't you want me to help you?" Her head tilted as she spoke, till she was frowning with sad confusion, shy and innocent and entirely unable to understand why Aki was blushing. 

And, well, fuck. When Himei looked at her like that, her eyes big and brown and doe-like, well. Aki knew there was no denying her anything. 

"Okay, I guess," Aki relented. "It's just... I don't know. I feel-"

 _Vulnerable_ , Aki didn't say.  _Like I'm pulling my skin off, baring my soul to you. Like this means something to me that it can't mean to you, because when you look at me like that, my heart flutters and I can't stop myself from daydreaming. Because I know you're ridiculously, perpetually, and eternally straight._

"I feel like you're getting a leg up on me," Aki forced herself to grin, injecting some cheer into her voice. "C'mon, you've seen all my scars, Himei. Don't pretend you haven't been looking. Don't I get the same in return?"

Himei froze and the very bit of a smile that had been starting to show on her face melted. Aki's heart clenched so quickly and painfully that she could feel it like a fist in her heart and she dropped her smile too. Stupid. She'd messed it all up. 

"Never mind," Aki spoke softly, as if to make sure that the sound of her voice wouldn't scare Himei off. Sometimes, Himei did seem to be entirely deer- easily startled, eyes soft and wide enough a circle of white was visible, legs long and graceful and frozen in the face of human intimacy. "Here."

She pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it across the room, where it fluttered briefly in the air before landing on Dusty's sleeping figure. He meowed in his sleep and turned over, tangling himself in it, and Aki couldn't help the snort that escaped her. 

Next to her, Himei giggled, and Aki's whole body deflated, a breath she hadn't known she was holding suddenly released. 

The next few minutes passed in relative silence as Aki turned back and forth at Himei's direction, the only sounds Dusty's soft purr and the crinkle of bandages as Himei guided her hands carefully to cover the still-weeping cuts and sores with white cloths as well as dabs of aloe. It was in some ways no different from only a few moments before- antiseptic, the hiss of pain when one of Aki's wounds twinged as Himei touched it, Himei's soft apology in response. But the moment of tension lay between them, unacknowledged, and Aki figured they'd pretend it never happened.

"Look, Himei-" Aki began.

She was surprised when Himei looked up and met her eyes full-on, with the intensity that Aki had seen only a few hours ago as they had fought the Yamiko. Aki had seen Himei's eyes as they had grappled, caught a flash of her hard, darkened gaze as Himei had moved back and forth, had seen the swing of her arms as she'd spoken the words that had transformed the Yamiko before them into a puddle of black liquid, and Aki couldn't help but think that Himei, as soft and vulnerable as she could become in this room, was more a force of nature than a girl.

"You're right," Himei murmured, so quiet Aki almost couldn't hear her. "You've given up your scars. I'll give you mine."

Her fingers touched at the hem of her soft black sweater, pulling with hesitance for a moment, before she took a firmer hold and pulled it over her head in a swift motion that almost startled Aki before the sight of Himei's bare skin elicited a gasp from her mouth.

Himei's body was littered with scars, and they covered her body, as many of them as freckles. Some were older than others, faded into a smooth white color that stood out against her browned skin. But many were fresh, still red and swollen. One red cut on the skin of her side looked only a few days old, and the sudden movement of pulling off her sweater had ripped it open, weeping blood at the corners.

"Holy shit," Aki breathed. There wasn't much else she could say except for that. 

Himei seemed to shrink in upon herself, and red heat bloomed on her cheeks. "I know they're... I know they're not pretty... and that they make me even uglier than I am..." she whispered. One hand clasped at her forearm almost subconsciously- a barrier between them. "But you're right. I can't ask you to be vulnerable like this alone."

Tears pricked at Aki's eyes. Against her better judgement, she reached out to touch a long white scar that curled around Himei's stomach and disappeared into the curl of Himei's hip, feeling a shiver of half-desire and half-awe run down the ridges of her spine. It was old and looked as though it hadn't healed too well. The skin felt ragged, unyielding in comparison to the softness of Himei's stomach, and underneath Aki's fingers Himei sighed. 

"I know it's ugly."

Aki looked back up at Himei's face. It was twisted into an expression that Aki knew well- the look that meant  _hate_ , that meant,  _don't touch me I will hurt you,_ meant,  _I am disgusting and sick on the inside and if you touch me you will see it and know how awful I am, and then you will never come back and too many people have left me already-_

Aki knew that expression. She had seen it on her own face in the mirror enough times that she could recognize it on a stranger, and she couldn't let Himei think that Aki would ever leave her, that Aki was capable of doing so-

"They're beautiful."

She wasn't completely aware she was speaking until the words were there, hovering tenderly in the air. It was the kind of thing that a boy in some cheesy American drama would say to a girl who had depression, and in a movie it would have cured everything. In real life, it didn't.

But it was still sincere and raw. It meant something. It promised something that Aki knew she would never be allowed to have with Himei, but the look on Himei's face- wide-eyed, mouth open in a small O- was worth it.

Himei recovered quickly, tilting her head downwards. Her jaw clenched, a muscle working in her mouth. "They aren't pretty," Himei replied, and her face was as resolute as it had ever been. "They make me damaged goods."

"Every scar you have is proof that you do more for this world than it has ever done for you," Aki said, leaning forward. Something was taut in her legs and chest, a certainty, and when she spoke, the words came out with such conviction her heart pounded in agreement. "It's proof you're a hero, Himei. It's beautiful that you've saved so many lives. It makes you a better person than ninety nine percent of the people I know."

"Yeah, well, not all of them are battle scars, Aki," Himei snapped back, and extended her arm, fast enough that Aki almost didn't understand what she was seeing, and when she did she felt the phantom pains that stung her thighs echo the scars on Himei's arm. The thin, precise lines said something that Aki was familiar with: small hands holding gleaming metal, a rushing broken dam inside the chest cavity, fingers that dismantled plastic disposable razors with a stupid and clumsy certainty. 

There was nothing she could say to that, so instead of speaking Aki flipped up her skirt so that Himei could see the long-since-healed white scars. They were stark and bright against Aki's brown skin, crossing between the splattered freckles, like she'd taken a ruler and attempted to play a macabre game of 'connect-the-dots' on her skin, with mixed success. At the way that Himei inhaled sharply, Aki knew that she had struck home.

"It's beautiful," Aki repeated, more to herself than to Himei, then again, louder, "it's beautiful, Himei,  _you're_ beautiful, god, Himei, you're a hero, you're so strong and brave and you were friends with me when I was the worst version of myself, god, Himei, you  _saved me_ -"

And then Himei was kissing her.

She tasted like the bowl of vanilla ice cream they had shared for dessert, like the tube of cherry chapstick that Aki had lent her once, long ago, and one of her hands came up to cup Aki's cheek, fingers callused and desperately gentle, and Aki could hardly believe that she was somehow awake, alive, and being kissed by a girl that was as vulnerable as a dying star, the girl she had been in love with before they had really known each other.

Aki kissed her back.

She leaned into the soft press of Himei's lips, wrapped her hands in Himei's soft black hair, opened her mouth and smiled, and Himei's body seemed to sing with incredulous joy underneath her hands as they held each other.

When they broke apart for air, Aki dropped her head to rest on the curve of Himei's collarbone and laughed softly into her skin, and thought,  _god, I am so happy._

At their school, Seiki was running football drills and yelling encouragement to his teammates. In a computer lab, Kongou Shin was explaining to Kotashi the Truth as she now knew it and what had happened in the computer lab only yesterday night. In Yami-Gaia, Cobalt was turning on a generator that would shortly be destroyed, along with his life's purpose. Somewhere in Tokyo, Magnificent Kamen was polishing his cane and planning Himei's slow death by his hands.

But here, in this room, as Dusty snored softly below them, Aki was kissing every scar on Himei's body and calling her beautiful as Himei gasped and begged, and Aki was saying  _I love you_ and meaning every word, filled with unbelieved bliss when Himei said it back.

Tonight they were sixteen and wounded and in love and that was enough. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> my ideas for what the sailor costumes look like is somewhat based off of springhole.net's iris halo costume designs


End file.
